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is to ascertain the cause of death. I cannot but think, however,
that it has a wider scope, that it is a proper part of sucli an
enquiry to determine whether the disease might not have been
prevented; and when that medical care is withheld which might
have been had upon application, I think a presumption of neglect is
raised, the responsibility of rebutting which should be thrown upon
those {e.g., parents) in charge of the sick. At any rate I am confident
that the dread of public exposure and judicial censure would
materially check the evils to which I have felt it my duty to
allude.
These local outbreaks furnish practical illustrations of the
inadequacy of existing Sanitary laws to cope with epidemic diseases.
If sucli diseases are to be met successfully, their existence should
be made known instantly to the health officer of the district, who,
while taking all necessary precautions for the protection of the
public, should have due regard to the interests of the sufferers. If
the home accommodation admits of the patient being isolated, and
the means at the disposal of the family are sufficient to provide for
the wants of the sick, there would be no occasion to insist on
removal. Otherwise the health officer should have absolute power
to remove cases to the Hospital. Had this power been in my
hands, not six of the sixty persons whose cases I have alluded to,
would have remained at home. Indeed, it is probable that the
sick would have numbered six rather than sixty ! A case which was
taken before the police magistrate shows how insufficient are our
powers. Three children in one family had small-pox successively.
They, with their parents, occupied a small back-room of a house
where a laundry business was carried on. The means of the father
were quite inadequate to provide necessaries for the children, and
he could not afford to pay a doctor. The district medical officer
therefore was called in, and certified a case as a proper one to be
removed to the Hospital. The parents refused to let the child go,
and hence the proceedings, instituted under section 26 of the
Sanitary Act, 1866. The Magistrate dismissed the summons,
ruling that the clause in question did not give us power to remove
the child, but only authorised the Vestry to pay the cost of the
removal by the father: the father had failed to comply with the
order of the Justice, and as no penalty was prescribed for disobedience—(a
" casus omissus ")—the man was enabled to set authority
at defiance. A great and unsuspected danger to the public health
was revealed in the course of the enquiry. I refer to the practice
of laundresses, who appear habitually to carry on their business
during the prevalence of infectious disease in their household.
Surely in such a case the sick should be removed instantly, or the
business-should be suspended ? Would not the 38th section of the
Sanitary Act, 1866, apply to such a case? This clause imposes a
penalty upon those who transmit infected clothing without having
previously disinfected it—the question here being whether garments